Leaving the Stage
What will Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria mean for the region?
‘We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency,” U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted triumphantly on December 19, 2018. His decision to withdraw over 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria was later confirmed by the White House. It not only shocked the Washington circles, but will also influence the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East.
Why now?
The author is a research fellow at the Charhar Institute and the University Haifa in Israel Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria and partially from Afghanistan is based largely on two assumptions. First, Trump believes that the U.S. presence in the Middle East does not serve its national interests and does not get the proper respect from regional states. Moreover, withdrawing from Syria and Afghanistan was one of his presidential campaign promises and Trump hopes to be perceived as a leader who is “a man of his word.”
Second, the U.S. traditional concerns in the Middle East, such as protecting oil supplies and defeating the direct threat of terrorism, have disappeared or are decreasing. The United States has transformed itself from an oil-importing state to an oil-exporting country due to the development of shale oil technology, while the extremist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is also disappearing with years of global terrorism combating efforts. In recent years, the major targets for ISIS and Al-qaeda have been shifted from the United States to “takfirs,” defined as Muslims who are accused by other Muslims of being non-believers, or apostatic states, countries accused of renouncing Islam, in both Europe and the Arab world.
As the winner of the Cold War, the United States’ dominating influence in the Middle East was once accepted by both the region and the international community. It was the United States that led the Gulf War in 1991. It was also the United States that organized the peace process between Israel and Palestine and facilitated the peace negotiations between Israel and Arab states, especially Syria and Jordan in the 1990s. It was the United States that launched the war against Afghanistan under the Taliban in 2001, and Iraq in 2003, and later helped install the new governments and local political systems. It was the United States that wanted to constrain the influence of Iran in the Middle East and initiated sanctions against Tehran. It is not an exaggeration to say that the United States has constructed the Middle East’s regional and geopolitical structure since the 1990s.
Trump has his own explanations for his decision to withdraw, but he still faces tremendous pressure at home. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned after Trump’s announcement as did U.S. special envoy for the coalition to counter ISIS Brett Mcgurk.
For many U.S. diplomats and foreign policy experts, staying in Afghanistan and Syria has meant maintaining U. S. dominance in the region and repelling the influence of its regional and international competitors, especially Iran and Russia. Trump’s decision to withdraw creates a sudden geopolitical vacuum in the region, with the U.S. reputation and influence in the region set to be further challenged.
Regional competition
The U.S. withdrawal marks an important step in changing the geopolitical balance in the Middle East, and will lead to a new round of competition and rivalry among regional powers, especially Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Turkey believes the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) is a branch of what it terms a terrorist group at home, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and is determined to eliminate it from north Syria through military offensives. Turkey launched two major offensives in 2016 and early 2018 to expel the Pyd-dominated militant groups from north Syria. It hopes to establish a buffer zone in north Syria across the entire Syrian-turkish border to settle both the Syrian rebels it backs and the 3.5 million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.
It was Turkey that successfully persuaded Trump to withdraw from Syria and is preparing for a military offensive in north Syria after the withdrawal. Once Turkey launches its military offensive, it may lead to a new round of regional competition or even conflict.
The Syrian Government still insists on its legal claim over all Syrian territory. From the 1980s to mid- 1990s, the PKK and the Syrian Government had very close relations and north Syria was once an important base for PKK militias to infiltrate into south Turkey to launch attacks. After the Syrian civil